what mariel made: butterfly cupcake cake

Recently I’ve had the privilege of getting to know 4-year old twins, whom I will call mr. i and miss c. However, it’s been quite some time since my youngest sister was 4 years old, and I’ve rediscovered how simple it can be to please these youngsters, especially when sugar is involved.

It was the twins’ birthday not too long ago, and I had eagerly offered to help make a cake for miss c. Since a fire truck-themed cake had already been ordered for mr. i, we decided to mix things up and save money by making miss c her own “girlier” cake—a butterfly cupcake cake.

Thanks to an image from Google, some help from Betty Crocker (ma home girl), and a funny movie called Safety Not Guaranteed, a butterfly cupcake cake was born at 2:30am the day of the party.

This is how we did it.

What you will need:

24 cupcakes (I used Betty Crocker Supermoist Cake Mixes to make mine, you can make them from scratch, if preferred)

Once you have 24 cooled cupcakes, place them on your cake base in the shape you would like your butterfly to be.

The shape of the butterfly cupcake cake pre-frosting. *Try to remember where you put the chocolate and white cupcakes.

Go on to frost the cupcakes in any fashion you prefer. For miss c’s cake, we frosted the head and body in mint green frosting with a star tip and frosted the wings in pink and lavender frosting with an offset spatula. *TIP: To form a more cohesive, cake-like appearance, frost the cupcakes separately and generously around the edges so that you can gently press the cupcake edges together to create the illusion of a seamless cake.

post-frosting butterfly (used a star tip for the head and body) (piped along the wing edges with a regular round tip)

After composing the main body of the butterfly, go crazy and use your imagination to decorate the butterfly. We used white icing in a piping bag with a smaller round tip to pipe a white border around the butterfly’s wings. This also helps to create the illusion of butterfly cake rather than a vaguely butterfly-shaped congregation of cupcakes. For the eyes of the butterfly, we used Dark Chocolate Covered Edamame from Trader Joe’s. The beautifully colored Chocolate Covered Sunflower seeds were used to add a bit more interest to the butterfly’s wings. *TIP: If you are using little candies to make shapes on the wings, outline the shape you want first with your candies and then fill them in with the rest of the candy to ensure a clean line.

This cake was so incredibly fun to make, and miss c loved it. I am already thinking of making another one that is white with very intricate “candy embroidery” on the wings. This cake idea is honestly so versatile and open to your imagination. You can even have the birthday girl or boy help you decorate the cake or make decorating the cake a party activity. Please run with this idea and fly! (pun intended)

This movie stars Aubrey Plaza (from Parks & Rec), Jake Johnson (from New Girl), and many other funny people you will recognize.

I highly recommend the movie, Safety Not Guaranteed, for anyone who wants to enjoy a quirky indie comedy. It is a really great movie for date night, lazy night, pizza night, baking night, any night…it is also readily available to watch via Instant Play on Netflix.

Mariel,
This cupcake cake is so adorable and cute and just made me smile. I’m so glad you are blogging your wonderful creations! Congrats and keep up this amazing blog. If you ever need a taste tester or assistant let me know.
❤
Pascale

Mariel Kim

i’m a california-born-texas-bred-ny-learned maker currently residing in northern california. after pursuing a degree in computer science at barnard college, i discovered a love for combining my analytical thinking skills and passion for people + design to improve the systems and processes around me.

you may find me regularly meandering an ever expanding list of coffee shops or creating content for my blog. i’m always looking for innovative outlets and projects to further expand my creative experience.